Another Face in the Crowd
by Barry Bubblestein
Summary: She wanted to think that this was a suitable punishment for what she had done, but was this going too far? A short story inspired by Captain Alaska. Rated T just to be safe.


**A/N: I wrote this for the author Captain Alaska, inspired by his story "Come Home Candlehead". In it, Vanellope threatens to turn Taffyta into a regular citizen as punishment for something bad she did. I've read about people turning Taffyta into a glitch, but never into a candy citizen. The idea interested me and I wrote this story because of it. So enjoy. **

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"Winner!" The booming voice of the Sugar Rush announcer cheered as today's avatars sped past the finish line.

All of the citizens in the grand stands cheered for their respective driver. All except for one. She sat in the hearted lollipop section of the candy booths. Even though she wore the typical red and white striped dress, she was not one of them. It was easy to tell her apart from the crowd because the lollipop head she wore still showed her platinum blonde hair and blue eyes, unlike her fellow candy siblings.

This fan's name was, or used to be, Taffyta Muttonfudge. And she was once a real racer.

After the game's rightful ruler, Vanellope Von Schweetz, had regained her status as their leader, she had put down a strict no bullying policy. Things had been fine for the first little while, but the pride that came with being the champion racer had caused Taffyta to fall back into her old habits. Despite showing how regretful she was for how she treated Vanellope after the game's reset, it was just in her programming to be arrogant and even cruel others. She had done things from say hurtful comments with no guilt or spread rumors about her friends to being a bad sport when she lost to someone she felt she was better than. Other times the blonde racer lost her temper. While it bothered all the avatars and even the fans, they forgave her because she was their friend. However some began to question this after a while.

However Taffyta hadn't really crossed the line until recently.

It had been Taffyta's one hundredth win in a row and she had won a large, gold-plated trophy. However her best friend Candlehead had accidentally tripped into her while walking around, gazing at her beloved candle. She wasn't watching where she was going and knocked her friend's precious trophy to the ground, shattering it to pieces. The pink racer had been livid with her, screaming about how her ditzy personality had caused everyone so many problems. This caused the candle headed girl to run off crying, much to the shock of the others that Taffyta would say something so mean-spirited to her closest friend.

It wasn't until later that the gang found out that she had run away because of the hurtful things that were said to her. Everyone imminently blamed Taffyta, sending her out to find their lost friend as part of her punishment. The platinum blonde reluctantly searched Game Central Station high and low for the ditzy racer, but failed to find any lead of her. She had just assumed that her friend would shake this whole thing off in a day and come back home and forget about all of this. Just like everyone in the game had done with Taffyta lately.

Unfortunately, Taffyta would find out that this would not be the case. As she returned home, she saw all of her friends with horrified looks on their faces. In front of them was the arcade's Surge Protector with a document file of papers and photos.

Candlehead was dead.

He reported that her body had been found outside of Tappers in a box, sealed and addressed to Sugar Rush. But when the Surge Protector had noticed blood seeping out, he opened it to find the green haired girl's dead, scratched up corpse. She had been attacked by a gang known as the Deadly Six, a violent group from one of the Sonic games who spread violence just for the entertainment of it. They must have thought a Sugar Rush racer would've been a fun target. He could tell it was them by the message scarred into her forehead that read "From: Zazz", who was one of the gang's more sadistic members.

A funeral was held the next day to mourn the loss of the innocent, birthday themed racer. It had been a sad day for all. However, once everyone had time to turn grief into anger, all finger pointed toward Taffyta. She had just then understood the gravity of what she had done. She cried harder than anyone else that day, knowing she could never undo the fact that Candlehead was gone forever, and it was all her fault. She begged and begged for forgiveness, but her peers heard none of it. They told her she had gone too far. As punishment, President Vanellope had told Taffyta that she would be stripped of her racing abilities and her code would be altered.

She though this meant that she was getting turned into a glitch, like Vanellope once was. Taffyta had hopped for too much.

Instead, Vanellope turned her into a normal citizen, like the candy lollipops that cheered in her grand stand. Her sparking pink outfit was replaced by a plain pink and white striped one. She gained a pair of white leggings and arm length gloves like all the other lollipops had. Instead of her strawberry hat, she was programmed to wear the headgear that resembled the head of her fans. After her session of changing Taffyta's code in the code room, the only thing left on the former racer that hadn't been changed was her face and hair that poked out of the headgear.

Since this meant that they would be down another racer, Vanellope had to create a new racer to take Taffyta's place. With her normal code now just grouped with the standard citizens, her code box could be given to the new racer along with her racing abilities. A few days later, the rest of the racers met the new girl, Presley Peppermint. She wore a red and white striped jacket over top of her dress. The dress was striped with red and green, coming with a pair of matching leggings. Topping all this off was her long white hair that had red streaks in it as well as a peppermint beret to match her jacket. Because Adorabeezle already had peppermints as her fans, Taffyta's heart fans were now rooting for Presley.

That was all about two weeks ago.

Now Taffyta was forced to sit in what used to be her stand and root for her replacement. "First place goes to Presley Peppermint." The announcer declared as the game presented her with a gold trophy for winning. She pulled a lollipop out of a little bag she carried around and held it above her head as she twirled in the air in victory. "Stay Sweet!" Presley cheered to her fans as she floated down and placed the lollipop in her mouth. This was a phrase that Taffyta used to say all the time.

Being a citizen was far worse than being a glitch for the former racing champion. If she were a glitch, she would be hiding away right now. But unfortunately for her, since she had to cheer for the new racer, she had to watch and interact with her former peers. As the fan stands cleared out, Taffyta followed the other lollipop hearts to see their racer. Those who recognized her shot her mean looks and a few had choice words to say to her.

"You lost your temper because of a part of your best friend that she can't help? Some friend you were. You deserve this punishment and more." Jubileena gave her a death glare.

"How does it feel to sit on the side line knowing you'll be watching us until the day our game gets unplugged?" Swizzle asked her as he walked by, carrying a second place trophy.

"Presley's a lot nicer person than you ever were when you were a racer." Rancis told her, looking at himself in his kart mirror per usual.

Taffyta soaked in the mean comments as she slowly walked over to Presley, who was smiling and sharing her victory with what were now Taffyta's brothers and sisters. "Oh thank you all for the nice praise." The new racer smiled widely at them all. "Now who wants to come to my house and celebrate?" The heart headed candies started to chant "Celebrate!" as they followed suit with her. All except for the blonde lollipop person. Presley had not heard about Taffyta's story or even her name, not really a big surprise there. After her transformation, everyone else decided to not mention her by name or explain why she looked so different from the normal fans to Presley.

To her, the worst thing about being a candy citizen was her loss in identity. Since each set of grand stand fans looked mostly alike, everyone just blended them under one name. She no longer had the name Taffyta, only that of a generic citizen. She had taken a stroll through Game Central Station one time when she walked past Tapper outside the entrance to his game. "Well look at you." He smiled at how cute she looked. "You must be one of Presley Peppermint's fans. Everyone says she's a real sweet heart." This shocked Taffyta. Had she really been forgotten that quickly?

Now she wished more than ever that Vanellope had turned her into a glitch. At least she would still have her name and an identity as that of a glitch. But as a citizen, she was just there. Except she had it a lot worse than just being a part of the general crowd. Her former fans knew how unkind she could be as well as what she had done. They didn't consider her one of their own. "Even though you may wear the costume, you will never be one of us." They had told Taffyta on day one of her being a lollipop fan.

She now stood alone at the finish line, turned away by everyone. All she had was herself. Taffyta started to walk away, heading towards the outskirts of Sugar Rush. She needed to do something, see someone. Someone important. She kept walking, her feet being the only sound in the quiet, deserted area not populated by fans or racers. Once she reached her destination, she stood in front of what she came for as depression and regret washed over her again. Before her stood a candy cane grave stone. The following words engraved into it.

_Here lies Candlehead  
The most happy and cheerful racer to ever exist in Sugar Rush  
R.I.P  
Never forget  
1997-2013_

Taffyta's gaze lowered, spotting the single candle that lay before her. Finally, the guilt overwhelmed her and she broke down in tears. She wanted her old life back, but she wanted her best friend back more. She wanted to escape this horrible purgatory of a life. It was all her fault that she was dead. If only she could go back and undo what she had done, she'd still be alive. Taffyta felt that she deserved this fate for what she did, but part of her wondered if this was going too far. They could have helped her change by doing something like sending her to Bad Anon meeting to work out how she had behaved instead of turning their backs on her. She had considered going to see Ralph or Felix about what had become of her. She knew she couldn't fully mend what had been damaged, but would they help her at least try to talk to Vanellope about getting her old life back and getting her help? Would they agree with the president that this punishment fit the crime? Would they even recognize her at all?

Taffyta wouldn't be surprised if they didn't. After all, she was just another face in the crowd now.

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**A/N: I hope you enjoyed this little one-off I did. Presley Peppermint is owned by SwizzleMalarkeyFan, whom I would like to thank for letting me use. But I would also like to give a massive thank you to Captain Alaska for inspiring me to write this. And if he is somehow reading this, thank you so much dude.**


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